BeDigital is a strategic consulting firm specialized in digital enablement, helping businesses create, deliver and capture value by transforming their economic and cultural models so that employees, tools and processes become more digitized and connected with customers, delivering persistent unified multichannel experiences.

Marketing firms proposing their ideas and services to make great digital campaigns.

Digital Marketing Gurus (I personnaly like Baekdal)

Few interesting links to different Governments that are promoting digital initiatives and strategies within their departments.

Fewer
links from people (like me) who are promoting their opinions on digital
strategy.

My opinion: a digital strategy should be before anything else an "enterprise matter".

Wikipedia definition of digital strategy is as
follow:

“ In the
fields of strategic management, marketing strategy and business strategy,
digital strategy is the process of specifying an organization's vision, goals,
opportunities and initiatives in order to maximize the business benefits of
digital initiatives to the organization. These can range from an enterprise
focus, which considers the broader opportunities and risks that digital
potentially creates (e.g., changes in the publishing industry) and often
includes customer intelligence, collaboration, new product/market exploration,
sales and service optimization, enterprise technology architectures and
processes, innovation and governance; to
more marketing and customer-focused efforts such as web sites, mobile,
eCommerce, social, site and search engine optimization, and advertising. ”

I
have deliberated highlighted the latter phrase. I am a truly believer that
marketing is extremely important in any business and that each and every opportunity
shall be taken to maximize the chance to uphold and increase oneself position
in any industry that we are part of. I like marketing and I love marketers.

BUT, I
truly beleive that a company should invest and devote time and money in the initial
phases of a digital strategy, minimizing risks, increasing opportunities, and ensuring
success. An Enterprise Digital Strategy should be crafted and implemented way before a Marketing Digital Strategy be in place.

What is my definition of a digital strategy?

A digital
strategy is the plan that describe how a company can create, capture, and deliver value by
transforming their economic and cultural models so that employees, tools and
processes become more digitized and connected with customers, delivering
persistent unified multichannel experiences. I will decorticate
each element.

“Create, deliver and capture value”

This is the
ultimate inside goal.

Value
is created anytime an action is taken for which the benefits exceed the costs,
or anytime an action is “prevented” for which the costs exceed the benefits.

Value
is captured anytime the selling price contributes to the firm’s profits AND the
difference between what the consumers would have been willing to pay and the
price.

Value
is delivered (to shareholders) when value has been properly created and
captured.

“Transforming their economic and cultural
models”

This is the
recipe to achieve the ultimate inside goal and the ultimate outside goal.

Transforming
the economic model has to do with all aspects of a business, including but not
limited to: production, supply chain, legal, human resources, financial,
technology, sales, after-sales, and of course, marketing. Basically: employees,
tools and processes.

Transforming
the cultural model has to do with, perhaps, changing the way people are
remunerated (e.g. Brick & Mortar employees that need to respond to customers that have bought a product online), the new skills that are required
are not found in the company (e.g. speaking different languages at the service
desk), the new level of expertise is somewhat different (e.g. employees need to
be trained on new / different tools), the entire processes (e.g. selling to
people that you don't see, managing inventories, etc.).

“More digitized and connected with customers”

This is the
ultimate outside goal.

Delivering
persistent unified multichannel experiences: where a company is not imposing a
way to do business with, but rather, having a company that is so profoundly and
intimately connected with its clients (visitors, returning customers, and
regular customers) that will allow seamless and timeless interactivities
(entire spectrum of the purchase cycle) between available channels.

==================

I like this
French Quebecois (really funny) proverb that says: “quand les bottines suivent
les babines” – which means: walk the talk.

In this
consumerization world, where the power is in the hands of customers more than
ever, many companies have deployed digital initiatives more in reaction to the
market rather than based on a genuine enterprise digital strategy. Many did not get the return they have forecasted, or they simply failed with dramatic outcome.

Just to
make sure: this blog is not a plea against marketing firms. I truly enjoy digital
marketing initiatives and campaigns that are going. If I were a marketing firm,
I would certainly push ideas like they do.

This blog
is more a plea for companies to invest and devote time and money in the initial
phases of a digital strategy, minimizing risks, increasing opportunities, and ensuring
success.

On that
note, I wish you good continuity in business! And do not hesitate to contact me
to discuss about the transformation of your business model.

Qui suis-je

BeDigital is a strategic consulting firm specialized in digital enablement, helping businesses create, deliver and capture value by transforming their economic and cultural models so that employees, tools and processes become more digitized and connected with customers, delivering persistent unified multichannel experiences.